Fashion With A New Twist

While it’s chic for women to wear blazers and oxfords, a man wearing a dress and heels is “drag”, “cross-dressing.” Madonna’s 2000 song What It Feels Like For a Girl, ponders why “Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short, wear shirts and boots ’cause it’s okay to be a boy but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading,

More than ten years later, the up-and-coming British designer, Jonathon Anderson, put men in dresses down his runway, making a poignant statement on the status of modern masculinity — the result, men in strapless camel busters, frilled bloomer-shorts, doctors’ gowns complete with what looks like dishwashing gloves, a powder blue robe and kinky leather pleated dresses. Wearable? Not quite. Commercial? Definitely not, but it is certainly conceptual.

While in India, the latest fashion trend on the desi runway definitely has our attention — men in skirts and feminine silhouettes.  Yes, you heard me right; no longer is androgynous dressing and gender-bending fashion restricted to women ditching their dresses for masculine inspired clothing like the blazer dress, the sexy pant-suit or even the boyfriend jean.

A recent incident that took place in Sweden last month saw male train drivers ditch their pants for skirts due to the unbearable temperature inside un-air-conditioned trains.

Riccardo Tisci, the Givenchy designer, created some interesting designs for the Opera Garnier in Paris. While claiming they were unisex, the outfit consisted of a long black cape and flowing dress made of nude tuille. Underneath are skin-tone cat suits embroidered with white lace to mimic the human skeleton.

And Adam Carolla, star of The Man Show, wrote a book, In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks wherein he humorously railed against the continuing feminization of men.

Yes, you heard me right; no longer is androgynous dressing and gender-bending fashion restricted to women ditching their dresses for masculine inspired clothing like the blazer dress, the sexy pant-suit or even the boyfriend jean.

Will crossdressing become mainstream in our lifetime? We have men on this forum that advocate it’s okay to wear a dress without presenting as a woman in public.  It can be said that it’s not what you wear, but how you feel in what you wear. You can represent yourself in a good way or in a bad way. Will fashion then become a thing of the past?

However, fashion, as ridiculous and trendy as it is at times, is still used as a form of self-expression and adornment and for most of us, it’s how we identify with the specific group of people to which we belong — women.

Whether we are part-time women or have transitioned so your inner and outer beings are now congruent, it’s still important to be seen and to practice that which all women do. Fashion is ultimately important because it is a form of communication. You are communicating to others who you are and what is important to you, whether or not you realize it.

Ahhh! but now we get to the rub, what are you communicating? What influences you in the way you dress. In my soon to be published book, Top Ten Fashion Mistakes By Crossdressers and How To Fix Them, we  deal with all those fashion faux pas’ that crossdressers make, and yes most of them are made by natal women too.  The book is available free of charge as an introduction to my new websites, Sister House and its blog, the Fashionable TG Woman.

Sister House has been my dream and now it is a reality. For the past year, I have been building a website and blog which I hope is unique to the community and gives you the first resource dedicated to fashion, style and presentation for the TG woman. My blog, the Fashionable TG Woman is about fashion, but written in a fun way with information and discussion that you should find both interesting and useful.

My website, Sister House is much more. It has six rooms (and more to come) each dealing with a different area of our transgender or crossdressing lives. Cursor over the room name on the left and it tells you about the room. The site is content heavy and I have recruited some really great writers. Some like Carollyn Olsen and Karen from Femme Fever, are immediately known to you.  The others will soon become favorites also.  All have experience in the crossdressing and transgender community.

Want to know about the issues in our TG lives, go to the Family Room. Want to know how to look fabulous, go to the Dressing Room. The Library is such a compendium that you simply must go and look, but check out the How-Tos. You’ll see these discussions on all the forums. The Membership Suite is just starting but you can let down your hair and ask those driving questions.

And lastly, the Boutique stocked by my favorite Certified Professional Shopper. Here you can find those hard to find items in large sizes (yes, shoes) and many things you haven’t thought about that will enhance your personal style. It’s still a work in progress, so if you can’t find what you are looking for, then it will be coming soon. Or send us a message and we’ll find it for you. Be sure to read the articles on sizing. With one exception these are affiliate links. That exception is a very classy company known to all of you and that announcement will be coming soon

I want you to become our loyal reader. You can opt-in to the mailing list/newsletter (probably weekly so not to inundate you with emails) because you’ll want to hear what is new and interesting. And remember the book, Top Ten Fashion Mistakes by Crossdressers and How To Fix Them  is free for joining the mailing list.

We call Sister House, a gathering place for the Crossdressing community and so it will become. Dear friends, please come join me.

Tags: featured, passing, shopping

Category: Transgender Body & Soul, Transgender Fashion